Monthly Director's Update: October 2014

The Fellows and I were invited into an incredible conversation with three remarkable men on their creative journey in music. We drove to Hendersonville, TN (home to the late Johnny Cash) to a recording studio to meet with 2 time Grammy award winning songwriter, Gordon Kennedy, his father, musician, Jerry Kennedy, who played guitar on some of the most legendary recordings with Elvis, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan, and 18-time Grammy winning bluegrass musician, Ricky Skaggs.

All three are men of deep faith and told stories of how God had placed them in situations to have meaningful conversations about their faith with fellow musicians and artists they had met and worked with along the way.

Our topic was Ricky Skaggs album Mosaic (which Gordon Kennedy produced) and the story behind it. The title song from the record was written by Gordon and inspired by a good friend of his with MS. This friend was confined to a wheel chair his entire life. After his death, they found a poem he had written called “my post”. In it he described His role (or post) in God’s larger story as being burdened by his disease. He understood it as his calling but wrestled with desiring a different calling, a “normal” life.

Gordon was deeply moved by this idea of our calling and began to write a song to honor his friend by communicating what this poem was about. He came up with the idea that each of us is a tile in God’s beautiful Mosaic of the Gospel. When viewed up close it is difficult to see the importance of an individual tile. But when viewed from God’s perspective it creates a breathtaking picture. Individual tiles blend together to reveal the story the Artist is telling.

We were treated to hearing the song in the recording studio in which it was recorded.

Our Fellows were impacted by considering their lives to be a tile in the Mosaic of the Master Artist. It is not always clear as to what our calling or impact truly is.

Carve my name upon a tree
A knife into the bark
Trying to make a mark
So they'd remember me

Wanting to matter to someone
Maybe be a reason why
Be the apple of an eye
Before my life is done

And all I'm sayin'
I'm in a place where
All I'm prayin'
I see my face in

Your mosaic
And I am a piece
In the deal
And it is real

Each life matters. Each story matters. It is what draws and binds us together in the Great Story our Creator has placed us in.

Where do you see your face in His Mosaic?